Codex Transportica

So the well-known and loved Christmas song goes. And, apparently, many hundreds of years ago, Santa was simply idle folklore about a jolly fat man who brought small gifts of pastimes and sweetmeats to all good children, and the verse was simply an admonition to the reluctant child to be well-behaved, or there would be no oranges in their stocking come Christmas morn.

Of course as we now know, Santa is very much the living, breathing, machete-swinging machine-gunning avenger of all unhappy and mistreated children. Santa’s “list” that is checked twice is a who’s who of murderers, molesters and torturers, and heaven help those who he tracks down with his Sleigh of Despatchment, pulled by genetically modified Paindeer (brevity prevents us naming all 36 here, but names include Slasher, Lancer, Bomber, Bruiser, Vapid, Malefic, Odius and Gandalf).

The image shown is similar to one of the popular seasonal cards, with Santa at the reigns, and his ELFs (small humanoid robots, literally “Engineered Life Forms”) busily gathering the bodies of those executed at this special time of year.

Theories abound as to who the man truly is, but all we know for sure is that one Christmas morning he appeared outside a notoriously abusive orphanage with his Sleigh, and massacred the entire staff. The children were all safe and subsequently happily re-housed, and it is now assumed that “Santa” is very much the vigilante, defending the helpless at a time of goodwill from his secret hideout far far to the North.

Since that time, every Christmas brings hysterical reports from some corner of the world where Santa sunk his Claws, in many cases assassinating seemingly respectable members of the community for crimes against the children. Upon investigation it would seem that so far he has always been proven correct, although no-one has any inkling as to how he could come by the information that would reveal that this Vicar, or that Councillor, is in fact an abuser.

Once slaughtered, Santa decorates his tree with the decapitated heads of his victims, and the rear of the sleigh sports a wreath of arms and legs. The final indignity is reserved for the most wicked victim of the year: that of being the “fairy” on the top of the tree, carried for 12 days and nights swinging from the giant fir braced at the back of the sleigh.

While a very real phenomenon, Santa insists on steeping himself in tradition, wearing a jolly red outfit to hide the bloodstains and laughing gaily as he drives his sleigh through the carnage. Note also the high incidence of allegorical references in his idiom:

• his sled’s dimensions are exactly that of the chariot of the god Fabulinus – the god of children and toddlers.
• the 6 layers of the tree represent the sixth day of creation, when God created Man in his own image, and perhaps also the popular theory from the early 21st century where it is said that there are only six degrees of separation between any two people on Earth. Food for thought indeed.
• the 36 paindeer, representing the number of hours that the first ever light shone over creation; the atomic number of Krypton; and most telling of all, it is the number of different combinations that two standard six-sided dice can be thrown.